Border Patrol agent fatally shoots illegal alien near San Ysidro
Border Patrol agent fatally shoots man near San Ysidro outlet mall, pedestrian crossing
https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/d...l-shooting.jpg[A yellow tarp covers the body of a person who was fatally shot by a Border Patrol agent Friday evening in San Ysidro.
(Alex Riggins/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The deadly shooting occurred around 5:45 p.m. in San Ysidro, in an area south of the Las Americas Premium Outlets and west of the pedestrian crossing into Mexico
By ALEX RIGGINS
OCT. 23, 2020 7:03 PM
SAN YSIDRO — A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed a man Friday evening at a heavily fortified area of the border near the San Ysidro pedestrian crossing into Mexico, authorities said.
It happened about 5:45 p.m. in a strip of federal property between two tall border barriers, just west of the pedestrian crossing and south of the Las Americas Premium Outlets.
The man who was shot died at the scene, according to Border Patrol San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke.
The man was not a U.S. citizen, San Diego police homicide Lt.
Andra Brown said, adding that authorities knew his name but were not immediately releasing it. She would not say if he had crossed the nearby border barrier.
“His immigration status has no bearing on the investigation that the San Diego Police Department is conducting,” Brown told reporters Friday night.
An alleged altercation occurred between the man and the agent before the agent shot him at least once, according to Brown, who said the San Diego Police Department is handling the investigation, as it does for all in-custody and officer-involved deaths in the city.
The agent who shot the man was the only agent involved and “was not seriously injured” in the altercation, Brown said.
A yellow tarp covered the body Friday night near a guardrail at the top of a service road above a roughly 20-foot drainage ditch. Brown said both the altercation and the shooting occurred in that area. .
It was directly south of Virginia Avenue, the dead-end street south of Camino De La Plaza that serves as a bus and taxi route and passenger-loading zone between the outlet mall and the walkway into Tijuana. As police and Border Patrol officials huddled near the scene Friday night, several Mexican police officers were stationed about 20 yards away on the south side of the border.
The area between the border barriers where the shooting occurred is lined by surveillance cameras and regularly patrolled by agents. It’s elevated and clearly visible from the backside of the outlet mall parking lot and Virginia Avenue. Brown said there were several witnesses to the incident.
The lieutenant also said San Diego homicide investigators would seek to speak with the agent involved, whose identity was not released. She said investigators would work with the Border Patrol and its union to determine whether the agent would provide a statement Friday night “or sometime in the future.”
Immigrant-rights activists and Border Patrol critics moved quickly Friday night to call for a transparent investigation conducted solely by San Diego police without interference from federal authorities.
“In the past, what we’ve seen from Border Patrol in San Diego is that they justify every shooting,” Jenn Budd, a former Border Patrol agent turned fierce agency critic, said. “They have not been cooperative with giving the names of agents and being transparent. I hope the new chief will be transparent and release video from the port of entry so everyone in the border community can see what happened.”
The leaders of two local social justice organizations also sent a letter to San Diego police Chief David Nisleit late Friday urging his department to thoroughly and transparently investigate the shooting.
“SDPD has sole jurisdiction to investigate this case for a possible homicide, not Border Patrol, not Customs and Border Protection, and not any other part of the Department of Homeland Security,” wrote Alliance San Diego Executive Director Andrea Guerrero and Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border Program.
“SDPD should ensure that none of these agencies, nor the unions representing their members, is involved at any level of the investigation,” Guerrero and Rios wrote. “Any involvement or coordination with these agencies, and specifically with (the Critical Incident Investigation Teams) has the potential to corrupt the investigation and could be considered an obstruction of justice.”
Friday’s shooting was believed to be the first fatal shooting by federal border agents in the San Diego area since June 2019, when seven Customs and Border Protection officers shot and killed a 23-year-old U.S. citizen during a gun battle at a San Ysidro vehicle crossing. Authorities said the man was trying to smuggle two Chinese citizens into the country in his pickup and attempted to plow and shoot his way into the U.S. from Mexico.
The last shooting involving San Diego-area Border Patrol agents was believed to have been in July 2018, when a 19-year-old man allegedly hit an agent with a rock and then stole his ATV. Other agents chased the teen and shot him at least once, causing him to crash. He survived.
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